Aired: 01/19/14

I don’t have to tell you how many messages, interruptions and distractions you are inundated with every day. Add to that the stress placed on so many of us by the many roles we play everyday – parent, partner, friend, worker, citizen. The very critical skill or quality of attention is under siege.

DANIEL GOLEMAN, the psychologist, journalist, and best-selling author who wrote the book on Emotional Intelligence, has a new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. In it, he delves into new, surprising findings from neuroscience labs and explains why attention is a little-noticed mental asset that makes a huge difference in how well we find our way in our personal lives, our careers, and in virtually everything we do. Like a muscle, use attention poorly and it withers; work it in the right way and it strengthens. But Goleman doesn’t only consider the personal need for attention but also the way evolution has presented humans a challenge when it comes to dealing with long term threats like climate change.

www.danielgoleman.info

 

 

 Aired: 1/13/14
According to NOREENA HERTZ, we to make up to 10,000 trivial decisions every single day, 227 just about food. Caffeinated or decaf? Small, medium, large or extra large? Colombian, Ecuadorian, Ethiopian? Hazelnut, vanilla or unflavored? Cream or milk? Sugar or sweetener? If you make the wrong choice when it comes to your coffee, it doesn’t matter very much. But make the wrong choice when it comes to your finances, your health, or work, and you could end up sicker, poorer, or without a job.
NOREENA has been a guest on this show on her earlier books. But they were both about global economics. Her new book, Eyes Wide Open is sub-titled How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World, and you can bet I’m going to ask Noreena how she decided on such a departure. In any case, I think this is a welcome subject as we face the choices of a new year, and I hope you’ll decide to tune in.

 

www.noreena.com

 Aired 01/05/14

 

These days the media are full of lists – the best and worst of 2013 – movies, TV, music, books, etc. as well as lists of resolutions and tips for 2014. So when I got an email from SARAH VanGELDER, co-founder and editor-in-chief of YES! Magazine, in which she wrote. “I just posted my end-of-year column on the stories from 2013 that could make 2014 transformative,” , I invited her to join me today. She actually titled her article, “10 Hopeful Things That Happened in 2013 to Get You Inspired for What’s to Come,” and that sounds like a great conversation to start the new year.
We’ll look back and ahead with an eye toward catching the waves or the winds of change, building on the best of last year to make 2014 even better. Let’s commit to taking action to move us all a bit closer to a world that just might work.

 

www.yesmagazine.org

 

 

Aired: 12/29/13

 

My guest this week is RICK HANSON, neuropsychologist, and author of the best-seller BUDDHA’S BRAIN. We’re going to talk about his latest book, HARDWIRING HAPPINESS, where he brings together mindfulness and neuroscience and offers pro-active practices to actually shift the brain’s neural structure – the hardwiring – toward calm, contentment, and confidence.

This time of year can be challenging for people. Holidays bring us in contact with family, which for many carries a charge. We’re all asked to be more social than usual. We need a story to tell. And it feels natural to take stock and self assess at the end and beginning of a calendar year. We can be hard on ourselves.

Rick Hanson and I are going to talk about how you can use new lessons science is learning about the brain to overcome it’s — so far evolutionarily successful — negativity bias – the brain’s tendency to hardwire negative and threatening experiences more easily, more quickly than positive ones. It’s important that you avoid predators. And the ones who didn’t had fewer children.

 

www.rickhanson.net

 

 

 Aired: 12/8/13

 

What do you think are the biggest solvable problems facing humanity? Justice and inequality? Violence and war? Climate change and pollution? Today we’re going to focus on one that I believe underlies all of those: Population.

The last book from today’s guest, ALAN WEISMAN, was thought-provoking, award-winning, and best-selling. THE WORLD WITHOUT US, which was made into a powerful documentary, imagined what would happen to planet earth if humans disappeared. Our massive infrastructure would collapse and vanish without human presence, and nature would swiftly begin to heal without our daily pressures.

 

But, Weisman, would rather Imagine a successful world with us, and that led to his newest book, COUNTDOWN: OUR LAST, BEST HOPE FOR A FUTURE ON EARTH. For this one, he traveled to 21 countries asking politicians, scientists, family planning specialists, doctors, and religious leaders, crucial questions about how we can successfully deal with the size of human population.

http://littlebrown.com/countdown.html